They can't take that away from me, or The girl with the silver sandals

As I was tooling around the hall in my (ugly) robe with the fuzzy stripes down the sleeves and trying not to fidget with the silly cap on my head (lip gloss attracts tassel, it's not pretty), one of my former student/colleagues said to me, "I love reading your blog.  It makes me hate my life less."  Well I'm in favor of anyone hating their life less, namely those in my profession,  because life is hard enough even when you don't hate your life.  

A lot has happened in the last two weeks.  I finished up my last set of gigs in Seattle, my parents came to see my new house for the first time, and I graduated with my doctorate.  It was kind of anti-climactic, really.  I went to church that morning, I put on my makeup and my festive shoes (sidebar: the silver sandals were intended for the graduation day, but as they did not arrive in time, nor was the weather conducive for open-toed shoes, I wore my clogs for most of the day until just before the ceremony, when I pulled out my black and white checkerboard wedge heels) and sat in a very small seat for a very long time while the president of the conservatory flapped his gums about the state of the institution and how they were using lots of money for "deferred maintenance" on the campus.  First of all, one city block does NOT a campus make.  Second of all, "deferred maintenance" is a nice way of saying, "this place is being held together with duct tape and if we don't put up some scaffolding and get it done, it's gonna fall down."  Then Ben Zander got up and gave a wonderful (and shorter) talk about musicianship and  wholly energized things, more speaking from the alumni president (snore) and the chosen undergraduate speaker (you, who say you've met every single one of us, what's my name?) and then finally the actual graduation.  Undergrads, masters' students, and at the very end, after everyone else, the eight people who were receiving a doctorate.  Two people from my class - good ole Matt put his nose to the grindstone and finished up same time as I did, three people from the class that started in 2002, and some others from before and after that.  I can't imagine spending seven years on a degree.  It's just unfathomable to me.  I would have killed or taken hostages or burned books or something along the way.  Four years was plenty.  So they put the funny hood on me and I beat feet out of the auditorium to the sounds of a brass quintet, and then tried to get home as quickly as possible to accommodate the 25 people coming to my house to help me celebrate.  Lots of little cooking things and five or six screwdrivers later (was anyone else counting? I sure wasn't...) it was the end of a long day in which I went from a normal (scoff) musician to a doctor musician.  Paging Dr. Shiksa, we have a pedagogical emergency.  

Major event, right?  Cause for pause, right?  Take some time to absorb the gravity of the situation, right?

Nope.  Got on a bus the next day for New York to do an audition for a competition.  A big competition with lots of international audition dates, one that I'll probably audition for again next year.  Did not continue with the celebratory drinking, hydrated lots, prepared for the singing of the arias, fixed the hair, put on the makeup, freaked out about the pianist being late, freaked out some more, and then made my way through the maze underneath the Met to get to my audition spot.  More waiting.  These competitions, the ones that are sectioned off by voice type, they absolutely make me want to kill myself.  Sitting in a room with NINE OTHER SOPRANOS who are all singing the pre-prescribed repertoire, NINE OTHER VERSIONS of "glitter and be gay,"  FOUR OTHER VERSIONS of the queen of the night's first aria, it makes me nauseated.  Seriously.  I thought I sang well, ate some korean food with my pianist, and made my way back to the bus.  Plug in macbook, insert west wing dvd, and wait for the ride home to be over.  Temp work at the church for a few days plus actual church choir work, a little shopping, a little facebook, a little watching of harry potter trailers, more work, contemplation of job possibilities, a job interview at a law office (people who are actually impressed that I finished a doctorate - how unusual), a job interview at a church that was canceled before it even began (how rude) some walking in the park, a tutorial at the apple store on websites (stay tuned) and then the email I got today.

It's not so much about the fact that I didn't advance as the numbers that accompany that fact.  When we auditioned for this competition, we were told that our singing would be scored across four categories, five points each.  So when I received said email, I went to check my scores, thinking that I might receive a little enlightenment.  Did I receive enlightenment?

The answer is a big fat NO.  I received a set of threes, across the board.  This indicates that I am wholly average, across the board.  Alternately, it could indicate that they didn't actually take the time to put in individual scores and just put everyone as average unless they made it into the finals (therefore: "above" average).  What do numbers tell us?  They tell us how we did on standardized tests, potentially determining where we went to school or how much we paid to go there.  They tell us how much our speeding ticket is going to be when we are caught by an especially zealous member of law enforcement sitting at the bottom of a hill (personal anecdote?  I deny everything)  or how many stitches we have to knit before we can turn around and purl on the sweater we're working on.  

If I were in a different place (as I have been many times since I read these numbers) I would think that I am a wholly average singer, and that I should just hang it up, embrace the doctorate and the teaching career, and get the lead out on the job search.  If I were in a different place I would question my worth or the originality of what I do, or even go back and try to micro-examine every tone that came out of my mouth three days ago.  I would question what I wore, my hair, my makeup, my shoes.  But I'm not in that place right now.  I'm wearing the silver sandals (which are fabulous, by the way) and I'm in that "screw you" state of mind.  

I am an individual.  

I am an intelligent and thoughtful performer.  

I kick particular quantities of ass on the two arias I was asked to sing.  

I look DAMN HOT in my purple dress.

And I realize that I was the last person before your lunch break, but I deserve more than a set of threes simply because you couldn't be bothered to use another keystroke.  I'm not saying I deserve higher scores, I'm saying I deserve a few minutes of consideration to consider if my technique played better than my musicianship, or if my artistic presentation was really as strong as my facility.  I'm asking for the consideration of someone who gives a crap.  Because I do give a crap about what I do.  And I do give a crap about my languages and my diction and my legato line and the cleanliness of my coloratura.  I do care about those things.  

And if that's not enough, I have a doctorate that no one can ever take back, and a killer pedicure inside these silver sandals.  And that makes Dr. Shiksa a ten, thank you very much.

Swinging for the fences since 1980.